In its second year, the Columbus Book Festival is back and bigger than ever, with more than a hundred authors appearing at the free event at the main Columbus Metropolitan Library and Topiary Park.
Among those authors are headliners including Veronica Roth, author of the bestselling “Divergent” trilogy; Hanif Abdurraqib, a poet, essayist and cultural critic from Columbus, best known for "There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension"; Nick Petrie, a novelist; Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian-American novelist, essayist and journalist; and Kennedy Ryan, a romance novelist recognized for her contemporary romance novels highlighting social issues and diverse characters.
Roth's most recent novel, the brief and potent “When Among Crows,” takes her in a new direction, moving away from science fiction and toward fantasy.
Set in contemporary Chicago, where Roth lives, it follows beings that come straight from Slavic folklore.
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“It's about a mysterious man who comes to a mysterious woman with a mission: He will help her break a curse which is killing her if she will help him find legendary witch Baba Jaga, who, of course, lives in Chicago on top of a Harold's Chicken. The only problem is that he comes from a holy order of monster hunters, and she is a monster,” Roth said.
Over the course of an eventful night, monster hunter Dymitr and “monster” Ala, a “zmora” who feeds on fear, run into all sorts of beings who might be more at home in the hills and forests of central Europe, including the alluring Niko, a “strzyga.”
“I really like the strzygi: They have two souls, they're born with two sets of teeth, they change into owls. There's just a lot about them,” Roth said.
The daughter of a mother who emigrated from Poland with her family, Roth wrote the book in part to find out more about her cultural heritage.
“I never felt like I was really Polish enough to explore that part of my heritage. So doing research for this book was like reconnecting to something, and giving myself permission to investigate it and to accept that it belongs to me, though in a different way that it belongs to people who were born in Poland.
"It brought me closer to my mother and to my uncle, Stan, who read an early draft and helped with my Polish. So it was a whole family experience. It was pretty lovely,” she said.
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Compared to her previous novels, Roth kept this one deliberately short.
“I wanted to keep it really focused on these three characters, and I wanted it to take place over one day. So I knew that would limit how long the story would be," she said. "And also part of the fun of it was how much can I make you fall for these characters and have them connect with each other over just one day.”
With this novel, she edges into the realm of horror.
“I'm a little bit of a weenie when it comes to horror,” she said. “But my editor encouraged me to really go there and not be afraid of it. It's different when you're writing it. It's not like the experience of reading it.
"To me, it didn't feel like horror until we were done. And then, there's like blood splatter and all this really scary stuff in it, which was a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest!”
Get to know the authors
Roth, like some of the other authors, will be speaking at an event that requires tickets reserved in advance, but many of the events will be open to all comers on the days of the festival.
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Besides individual author talks, the festival includes dozens of panel discussions by multiple authors on topics such as “Success with a Side of Steamy Romance,” “Sapphic Swoons,” “Ohio Sports” and “Cults, Cats, and Killers.”
The Friends of the Library Big Book Sale will be held in a tent at Topiary Park, where visitors can also find two stages with entertainers, dozens of exhibitor booths, an independent-authors area, food trucks, children's activities and more.
At a glance
The Columbus Book Festival will be held at the Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96 S. Grant Ave. and at the adjacent Topiary Park from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. July 13 and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 14.
Admission is free. For more information, visit columbusbookfestival.org
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